Me: "No, powered by hippie tears! And every time your 'low fuel' light comes on, you have to pull over and punch a hippie to gas up! It'd be the perfect vehicle for Broad Ripple, because fuel would be too cheap to meter."

(It said "Peace Ride", as we discovered when they came ring-ding-ding-ing up at the next traffic light.)

*In Indiana, scooters with an engine displacement of less than 50cc's are not considered motor vehicles, and do not require a license to operate, which warms the more anarchic cockles of my heart. They are frequently piloted by Habitual Traffic Violators. It is customary to say "Sorry about your license!" when passing one. (Or at least it is for me.)

It's the scooters on one hand, the really sad ones are the 30+ men on a street bicycle trying to make it down Fall Creek during rush hour in the winter.

There are some people making some cash on the side "boring out" those engines. Giving them some more ponies. According to a LEO friend of mine, he doesn't care how many CC's it has, if it's going over 35 he's pulling you over.

I thought this was pretty much universal, but I've had to enlighten several out of staters as to why there are so many grown men tooling around Anderson in scooters.

A lot of college students around her have them, because they're so convenient for tooling around town on, and really good on gas. For a while, there was even a little store selling them just a block or so from campus. I think the rent for that location was too high for that kind of business to last, but it says something that they lasted as long as they did.

Of course, a lot of people who can't get a license anymore also have them, since VA doesn't require a license for them either.

The vast majority of them are NOT actually less than 50 cc, therefore, require licensing.The police say they have better things to do than enforce the moped/scooter distinction, but it is OUT OF CONTROL.(it's a bit of a chuckle to drive/ride by the community corrections facility and see the work releasers parking lot, chock full of "moped" scooters)

Around here, the habitual traffic violators tend to ride $10 junker road bikes, with the drop bars rolled up so that the "U" formed by the end of the bars is vertical, instead of parallel to the ground.

Back in the early days of mopeds (early 70's) I worked at a motorcycle shop that sold them. (Moto Guzzi had the best) Discovered the way the manufacturers regulated speed was to put a different intake "manifold" on them. Externally they all looked the same, but the ID of the bore varied. IIRC, that was the only thing you had to swap, or bore out, to get some screaming performance out of them.

The trick to riding them was to keep the top speed down, but use the added acceleration, light to light.